Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Now we are back. We're going to go until 6:55.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Someone will be filling in for me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We have a full two hours for the meeting, so we're going until 7:30 unless....

[An hon. member]

Let's go to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

No, I had to suspend. I can't go to a vote right now because when I suspended the meeting, Mr. May had the floor. We are discussing the amendment of Mr. Desilets.

I'm coming back to you, Mr. May. You have the floor.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I'm confused. We didn't have a vote. You asked for unanimous consent. You do not have it. You do not have unanimous consent to continue this meeting.

I will continue to speak if that's what we're doing here, Mr. Chair, but this has not been the way this committee has been operating. In every other circumstance, we have been asked—

[An hon. member]

On a point of order—

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

You've asked for unanimous consent. If I have the floor, I will continue to speak.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I'll let you continue. As I said, I just consulted the table and they said that unanimous consent to continue is not a formal thing.

If we see that people are willing to continue to discuss.... That's why I gave you the floor. It's to continue to discuss it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

If Mr. May doesn't want to continue the meeting, he can just stop talking and we can have a vote and we can deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

That's not a point of order. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will go back to what I was speaking about before the votes began and will remind this committee that when this issue came to us for the first time, I said that we have a number of motions in front of this committee. We were in the middle of the women's study at the time, which I think should have taken precedence, but we stopped. We paused that study in order to address Mr. Desilets' original motion, which I believe was for one meeting. Am I correct that it was one meeting?

Then it became that we wanted to bring in Daoust and we wanted to bring in the minister. I addressed this committee back then and said that this felt like mission creep and that we were going to continue to dig and dig. This has now become a deep-sea fishing exercise, as far as I can tell.

This is not the proper way to debate these motions. We have amendments to this motion, which we have not had an opportunity to get to, because we're not dealing with this in committee business the way that it should be. We have committed to hosting a subcommittee meeting to be able to deal with this and to move forward properly. That's been rejected. This has been something that, clearly, the opposition wants to do in open committee so that they can make a spectacle of it.

We had a number of times when witnesses were interrupted, Mr. Chair, to the point that we had to, as was advised to us, take even more time to do sensitivity training on when we have witnesses who have lived experience in front of us. I think that was a very valuable experience, and I thank MP Blaney for suggesting we go through that. This happened at the last meeting. The witness even spoke to the disrespect she was shown, and it has happened again today with witnesses we did not get a chance to hear from.

There is a process for these motions. All the other motions we've done have been done through that process. The push-back they're seeing from us is a result of that process being broken and of the spectacle this is attempting to create.

With regard to the amendment in front of us, again, I'm not fundamentally against the amendment from Monsieur Desilets at all. I think this is just the wrong time and place to be doing these sorts of things. We absolutely need to reset this committee and get back to a subcommittee scenario so that we're dealing with these motions appropriately.

Mr. Chair, may I ask quickly, because I don't have it readily in front of me, how many motions we already have on the docket right now. Is it seven or eight?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I don't know.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

We are spending time on something we've already spent a significant amount of time studying, yet we have these other motions prepared, including one of my own, that I would very much like to get to, Mr. Chair. I don't see us getting to these things if we continue to interrupt witnesses with this kind of behaviour from the opposition.

I think we have to address—

[A voice]

Just vote.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

The opposition is saying, “Just vote.” That's breaching my privilege to bring an amendment forward. That's breaching my privilege to discuss this appropriately.

There are amendments that I think would be reasonable amendments that the opposition may want to hear, but they don't want to hear them, Mr. Chair. This is a deep-sea fishing exercise. They want to create a spectacle and to politicize this. They think there must be something to hide because we're not supporting this. That's nonsense. We have seen the minister already come to this committee to discuss this.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I could listen to this guy all day.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I'm glad, because you might have to. I'm glad that I'm amusing—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Order, please. Mr. May, you have the floor.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think the opposition is going to continue to heckle over what I think is a pertinent point regarding the process with which we deal with these types of motions. They're going to laugh and they're going to make light of this, but this is the reality that we're facing right now: The rules and the process are being swept away because they want to make this into a political spectacle. They want to bog down the different departments with the production of documents. They want to bog down this committee when we have motions in front of us, like the one that I put forward. I would challenge this committee to argue that this is not something that we should be addressing.

I'll read it into the record, because maybe it's been so long that they've forgotten:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee undertake a study on the experience of Indigenous Veterans and Black Veterans with regard to: (a) physical health, mental health, and safety concerns, (b) supports for their transition to civilian life, (c) sexual trauma during service, (d) housing and homelessness, (e) Veterans Affairs Canada programs and supports for them, and (f) difficulties encountered during calls to participate in a foreign mission.

That the Committee invite the Minister of Veterans Affairs and department officials; that the committee hold no fewer than 6 meetings to hear from witnesses; that the Committee report its findings and recommendations to the House; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Committee request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

That's one of, I think, seven or eight very good motions that we have in front of us. I think that if you were to poll veterans about what they think we should be looking at, this would rank significantly higher.

I can go through all of the motions we have from our side, from Mr. Desilets, from MP Blaney and even a number put forward by Mr. Richards.

I would think that this committee should be seized with real, fundamental work instead of the grandstanding and the politicking that has been happening in the last number of months. I think that we have to recognize that when people are watching and when veterans are here, we need to respect their time. We need to respect their efforts to come here and inform this committee instead of using this time to grandstand and to go on these fishing expeditions.

Mr. Chair, I think that it's important for us to look at all of this and ask ourselves how we're being perceived across the country and if we're producing recommendations for the government to move on.

I'm given to believe that the opposition believes that this fishing expedition is more important than all of those other motions. We have Mr. Tolmie here pretending he's fishing, and he thinks that this is funny. I don't think this is funny. I think that we have to recognize that we are here to do a very serious job.

The behaviour from the opposition has been called out by our witnesses. It's been called out by veterans online as disrespectful and with other words that I will not use in this place.

That should embarrass the members opposite, but instead they're pantomiming and trying to make fun of this intervention that I'm making right now.

I will wrap up, Mr. Chair, because I know there are others who want to speak to this issue.

I think Monsieur Desilets' amendment is a reasonable one, but I have amendments that I think are reasonable as well that I think Monsieur Desilets would hopefully consider.

It's not as simple as just saying, as Mr. Richards was saying, “Let's just vote on it. Let's just get this out of the way and vote on it.” I think that shows such a lack of respect for this process and a lack of respect for our parliamentary rights and privileges, and it shows, Mr. Chair, that this is exactly what I said it is: It is a political stunt and a fishing expedition.

Look, I think we have to recognize that this process is being subverted right now. Instead of dealing with this in the proper fashion, instead of dealing with this in an in camera session, which is what we have suggested we would agree to, they want to bring this out into the light and in public and make hay with it instead of actually doing the work that represents and supports veterans.

I'll close there, Mr. Chair, but I do have motions that I would like to bring forward. I'm speaking to Monsieur Desilets' motion.

I did have my hand up previously, so I hope that list is still solid and that once we get through this amendment, we come back to that original list and I'll be recognized as having an amendment to speak to.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. May.

I have on my list Ms. Blaney, Mr. Miao, Mr. Desilets, Mr. Sarai and Ms. Hepfner.

Ms. Blaney, the floor is yours.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I want to put out there, first of all, that I do have to leave by 7:30. I do have another commitment that I also am committed to. I just want the committee to know that.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You could get a substitute.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I can't get a sub, but thank you so much for offering that to me, Blake. I am a whip. I know how that works.

I'm happy to support this amendment.

I was excited to hear Mr. Richards say that we were just going to get on with it, because I was getting frustrated by how political this has become.

In December, when I moved to adjourn, we had time in the last sitting week, on the Thursday, and I would have been happy to sit.

I don't get a vacation. I'm sure most of us don't. I was trying to spend time with my constituents. I had obligations to them. I really believe that constituency time matters, because our constituents matter, so I'm hoping we can get to a vote at least on the amendment that we have.

I keep hearing from the Liberals that they have amendments they would like to propose. If they have amendments that have a good rationale, I'm happy to consider them. I'm happy to have that discussion. I would like a clear rationale to them, as Mr. Desilets has given as well.

It feels as if this is just getting held up. I've been very clear from the beginning. I have said publicly that I would support Mr. Richards' motion. I know that I've interrupted him a few times to try to get him to move the motion. I want to say that he moved it and I appreciated that he didn't have a big speech in front of it. It's unfortunate that we can't even vote on an amendment that everybody has said they're comfortable with. It would be good to at least take one step so that we can get one step closer. I want this done. I think I've been very clear with this committee that I just want this done.

The reality is that I don't know the right answer for this. I really do believe that veterans should be making the final decision, but how that decision is made matters. How that process is made matters. We have not had clarity.

I really feel sad, because this is now blemished, and that service in Afghanistan should not be blemished with this. I'm just trying to get to a place where we can figure out what happened, because I'm sorry, but what we were hearing from the minister was not enough for me. I was clear during that meeting that it was not clear enough for me. The process was not clear, and there was no way to prove it was veterans. Maybe it was, but again it creates this cloudiness that I don't think is fair.

I encourage this committee to please just get at least to the amendment and then hear what the Liberals have to offer. Then maybe in the next few minutes we can actually get this done.